VOR navigation on HSI

[Fred737]

3 things:

1) Practicing oldschool VOR navigation, I found a problem. If I switch the HSI to VOR/ILS I only get it to work for the captain if I set the EFI switch to "both on 2" , In the "normal" position only the FO HSI works like it should , in "both on 1" none of them work like they should,

In "normal" The captains HSI pointer does work but states "from" (when it should be to) when the FO's states  "to"  and the magenta "bar" in the pilots HSI always stays aligned, while the FO's bar moves lateral like it should.

I must be doing something wrong but no clue what. I had both nav radios on the same frequency  and HSI switches the same.  In most planes I have a nav/gps switch but I can not find one here. 

The answer is maybe somewhere in the tutorials but I can not find it.  The HSI VOR function does work in the MAP mode so the radio part must be set up correct.

2) I have bought Trafic Global, this has the XP11.41 TCAS  function. As far as I know this is shows other planes on  the weather or terrain radar (or both) This is from the manual: 

Some aircraft, and some external tools, provide a TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) feature. Traffic
Global supports this feature for both X-Plane 11.41 and 11.50, which use very different methods to achieve this.
The TCAS option is available in the “Settings” dialog and does not require X-Plane to be restarted.

Does this work on the 737 ?  If so, how  ?

3) Found a "bug" The master volume slider in the bump menu controls only the aircraft exterior, aircraft interior and environmental sliders from Xplane's own sound  menu. Not the master slider (that also does no longer work if the 737 is loaded)

The cockpit sound volume slider does exact the same thing as the bump-menu master slider. (regulate those 3 sliders) and the airco slider seems top do nothing. (regarding xplanes own sliders) Besides that, if I move the cockpit volume down, and then the airco too, the cockpit slider goes to max, but not always and sometimes it works just the way around moving the airco slider opposite from the cockpit sound slider.  

Could this be, like the views menu,  a XP10 Heritage ? 

Fred

 

[Litjan]

Hi Fred,

1.) I doublechecked, and everything works as it should on my sytem. Make sure that the needle faces the "correct way" - the little "crossbar" points to the course that you dial in on the MCP. Here are pictures of the aircraft sitting at EDDF 07C, facing towards the FFM VOR (set on CPTs side) and the RID VOR (set on FO´s side) is on the right aft quarter. These are the indications on the EHSIs:

As you can see both are showing TO when the needle´s tip (crossbar) points TO the VOR.

2.) I have no idea if that works - we use the standard X-Plane AI aircraft information to read and display traffic information...so if Global Traffic writes to those datarefs, it should work - maybe someone who has Global Traffic can chime in here?

3.) When using the IXEG, it is best to completely forget about the default X-Plane sound sliders, it may be necessary to reset them after exiting the 737, there is some crosseffect...we hope to completely move towards FMOD with the XP12 version of our aicraft...then we will use default XP sound and those problems will be gone :-)

The airconditioning sound slider does work on my system, though.

Cheers, Jan

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Litjan

[Fred737]

Solved the sound, if I move all XP sliders to zero all your sliders work fine. A big improvement, the "irritating" high amplitude hiss turned out to be the AC and now I can turn it down a bit.  

The VOR problem is still a problem. I started the plane as "ready to fly" just to be sure, If I then set everything up like you the result is the same but the problem is that if I turn the course on the MCP on the FO side the magenta bar in the FO HSI moves out of the centre like it should do.  If I do that on the captain site, nothing happens, the magenta bar does not move and always keeps aligned with the crossbar. I think I know more or less how to use it because I navigate like this in the FlyJsim 727 and most times  I do arrive at the planned airport. The 2 needles in the DME meter do point in the correct position.

If I change the radio frequency the DME meter needle position changes but nothing happens on the HSI, crossbar and magenta bar do not react. So I think my radio is not switching over, I can repair a real one but not a virtual one 

Maybe some plugin problem, tonight I will try it with everything switched off (very easy thanks to Xorganizer) I do not have a navigraph subscription so I use the default database AIRAC 1509 acording to the FMS in the 737 (on some planes 1702 and 1707 because those came with the planes. 
 

I included the log file from the test, maybe you see something strange. The plane behaves for the rest always very nice. I reboot XP when I change planes. I have several studylevel planes and rebooting XP solves a lot of problems. 

Log.txt

[Litjan]

4 hours ago, Fred737 said:

If I do that on the captain site, nothing happens, the magenta bar does not move and always keeps aligned with the crossbar.

Hmm, are you sure you have not tuned an ILS frequency instead of a VOR?

The CPTs side equipment works exactly like the FO´s side, the EHSI can only display VOR and LOC information, not GPS, so there is not GPS/NAV switch on the 737.

Not sure, maybe a plugin can interfere, but if the RMI needle shows the correct direction this means that the respective VHF NAV radio has tuned and is receiving valid radial information from the VOR transmitter station and both RMI needle and EHSI deviation bar should indicate correctly.

Maybe make a short video clip showing what you do and I can take a look and compare if this is happening for me as well?

Cheers, Jan

 

[Fred737]

Thanks Jan for always answering so fast. If you had more planes I would buy them :-) 

I just tried it, yesterday evening I had to much fun trying to fly your weather radar tutorial flight (I lost my way and flew into the ground but I really enjoyed it) So I now just tried it with all custom scenery, plugins and other aircraft switched off, (except lua) and now it works fine, so it must be some conflict between plugins or so. Next step finding the guilty one, not hard but a bit time consuming. 

[Litjan]

Glad you are making progress with finding out what is going on - make sure to let us know when you find the problem, there is bound to be other users who may run into the same problem.

Happy flying (and stay away from the ground, except for landing! )

Cheers, Jan

 

[Fred737]

Found it, the GTN750 GPS plugin was the problem.

I use that only for GA planes so tested this as the last plugin not thinking it would gave problems because I do not use it in the 737.  It turns out it is not the plugin itself, but If you open it from the XP plugin menu, it makes a .ini file in the directory of the plane you are flying. It also promotes itself to master-gps. And even if you do not ever use it , as long as the .ini file is there, it stays master.  I have not tried it for the 737 but you can disable the master status in the GTN menu and still use it as a slave, I do that in some GA planes. So maybe an option if you want to use in the 737 as a tablet.

By the way, now librain is not working, the rain effect of the 737 is not bad but I had never noticed it before because it seems to be only active if I zoom in a little or look from an angle.  Not an ideal position during flight  (but moving closer does not activate it). It could use some higher drop density (maybe add some layers over each other ) but it looks pretty realistic.  It could be a nice base for a librain replacement. The only thing I really miss in Vulcan. 

[Litjan]

Yes, we considered using librain, but the Vulkan thing kinda ruled it out. We will definitely wait for XP12 to see if LR offers some native rain effect before we spend much effort on improving our own ;-)

Cheers, Jan

 

[Fred737]

Strange, the rain effect now works like it should. I made a mistake with the weather-radar tutorial. I started somewhere else much more north and  when I was above 5000 ft the raindrops became a lot bigger and looked very much like snow. I  really needed the wipers to see something. Very cool. 

Are there plans (for XP11  ) to add a random faults option to the 737 ? ? I know I can select faults to practice procedures but the thing I like from f.i. the 727 is that random things go wrong, sometimes a lightbulb but last week my gear did not come down because the hydraulic fluid was empty. (to bad I could not find a manual control or an emergency checklist ) This makes it important to really do the checklist. (no fun if you now upfront everything is OK and like new)

You talked about Xplane 12,  do you know more about that ?  I suppose at some moment they will start development but I do not think they implement something as Vulcan  and then ditch 11 after a short time for 12. (but maybe they already planned to use Vulcan in 12 and is 11 a sort of unofficial beta trial for 12  

[Litjan]

Hi Fred,

yes, when you are flying higher it gets more cold and the rain will appear as snow.

We do plan to add more functionality to the IXEG for the XP12 version, including a more comprehensive failure and wear+tear model.

Other than that it is coming I know nothing about XP12 that isn´t common knowledge.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Fred737]

Sorry, a bit a stupid question. I screwed up major above an amazing bad weather flight above Greenland,  Low above snow covered mountains,  IFR in a snowstorm, but also in the sun above beautiful cloud formations. 

Instead of zooming I switched the left IRS to off.  I then switched EFI both on 2 and IRS both on R.  But now I had no route on the map because I had not programmed the FO's FMS. (could not find a Direct too like in GA GPS). 

What would a real pilot do:

- I can program a fix to the destination point
- or type in the whole flightplan in the FO FMS 
- I know my location because I was flying to a DBN and am now above it.  I know the heading to the airfield and so I can hand fly
- connect the captains FMS to the right IRS and the EFI back to normal. 

 I did not want to screw this nice trip up, and want to learn to deal the correct way with such a situation. So I pauzed the flight and dived in the books but I can not figure out how to handle this the most realistic.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Fred737

[Litjan]

Errm, this is really not much of a problem - you can simply switch the FO´s nav display to show the map and then you will be able to see it on your side as well - the 737 only has one FMC, both CDU´s access it (think like it is a computer with two keyboards attached). So you can simply select the display you want on the FO´s side.

You can even realign the IRS you shut down in ATT mode (just wait for a few minutes while flying straight and level). It will realign in attitude mode, so you can now switch your EADI back to it...but it will not supply positional information, only attitude (like an artificial horizon).

You will not notice the positional information missing, though - you still have data from the other IRS and also from the GPS receiver...they both update the FMC position, so your map display is still accurate.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Fred737]

Thanks, I did not know about the IRS ATT mode. As an EE I thought automatically ATT is attenuation and you need it when you are close to a transmitter but now I learned it stands for Attitude and it turns out an IRS is not a GPS.

Very interesting, my main interests in planes is the technical aspect and for most physics and systems. But it is a lot to learn if you only flew GA bushplanes and helicopters without things like route planning (incl weather and fuel) There is a lot of info on the net but because most things are abbreviated it is hard to search and understand if you are new to airliners.

I am still practice the bad weather IRF flying and I noticed the plane sometimes during taxi pulls to one side in such a way that I need to use 1 engine, differential brakes and full rudder and full nosewheel tiller only to go straight but often that is not enough. I never had this problem before but also the 727 sometimes reacts this way so it is not the plane.

Is this solely caused by cross-wind ? (14 kts crosswind , my heading 55, the wind 300 and I drift to the right) ?  It must be this, but a plane is pretty heavy and streamlined, and I would expect the wind to blow the vertical stabiliser to the right, so the plane would pivots to the left . But that could explain why I can turn/pivot left if the speed is zero. On the other hand, real planes fly in much stronger winds.